Record card receiving and feeding apparatus

ABSTRACT

An apparatus for accepting a number of record cards and selectively feeding the cards, one at a time, to another station for operations such a reading and writing. In operation, an operator will insert the cards through an opening in the housing enclosing the apparatus. Beyond the opening in the housing is an expandable pressure throat made up of angularly extending wings integral with a rotatable card lifter and a rotatable pressure plate. With the stack of cards fully inserted and against a knife blade and guide, the stack is maintained intact by 1) a pressure roller connected to the pressure plate and forming part of the pressure throat, 2) card lifter rollers connected to the card lifter and forming another part of the pressure throat, and 3) the pressure plate itself forcing the stack against a baseplate carrying the card lifter. In the normal position a feed roller is spaced from the pressure roller, and is located on the same plane with the pressure and lifter rollers. The pressure plate is spring biased against the stack such that the stack is maintained intact in the vicinity of an exit throat and the entry throat. The feed roller is a continually rotating roller which is brought into contact with an outer card on the stack each time the card lifter is rotated. When this occurs, the outer card is ejected through the exit throat made up of an opening between the knife blade and a throat piece connected to the baseplate. Thereafter, the lifter is rotated back to its normal position and the cards are brought out of contact with the feed roller.

United States Patent 1191 Quist, Jr.

[ RECORD CARD RECEIVING AND FEEDING APPARATUS [75] Inventor: Frederick Fenn Quist, Jr., Austin,

Tex.

[73] Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY.

[22] Filed: Dec. 4, 1972 [21] Appl. No; 311,591

Primary ExaminerRichard A. Schacher Assistant Examiner-Bruce H. Stoner, Jr. Attorney, Agent, or Firm-James H. Barksdale, Jr.

[57] ABSTRACT An apparatus for accepting a number of record cards [111' 3,823,936 1451 July 16, 1974 and selectively feeding the cards, one at a time, to another station for operations such a reading and writing. In operation, an operator will insert the cards through an opening in the housing enclosing the apparatus-Beyond the opening in the housing is an expandable pressure throat made up of angularly extending wings integral with a rotatable card lifter and a rotatable pressure plate. With the stack of cards fully inserted and against a knife blade and guide, the stack is maintained intact by 1) a pressure roller connected to the pressure plate and forming part of the pressure throat, 2) card lifter rollers connected to the card lifter and forming another part of the pressure throat, and 3) the pressure plate itself forcing the stack against a baseplate carrying the card lifter. In the normal position a feed roller is spaced from the pressure roller, and is located on the same plane with the pressure and lifter rollers. The pressure plate is spring biased against the stack such that the stack is maintained intact in the vicinity of an exit throat and the entry throat. The feed roller is a continually rotating roller which is brought into contact with an outer card on the stack each time the card lifter is rotated. When this occurs, the outer card is ejected through the exit throat made up of an opening between the knife blade and a throat piece connected to the baseplate. Thereafter, the lifter is rotated back to its normal position and the cards are brought out of contact with the feed roller.

10 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures PATENIEU JUL? 6 FIG.

FIG. 2

PATENIED JUL 1 6 m4 SHEET 2 0F 2 FIG. 4

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to media handling apparatuses in general. More specifically, this invention deals with an apparatus for receiving a stack of record cards and feeding the cards, one at a time, to other stations for such operations as reading and writing.

2. Description of the Prior Art The prior art contains a great number of apparatuses for feeding cards sequentially from the bottom of a card stack. For example, illustrative of the closest known prior art are IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 11, No. 1, June, 1968, pages 33 and 34, and Vol. 11, No. 11, April, 1969, page 1587, U.S. Pat. No. 3,576,322, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,598,396. In the first IBM TDB referred to above, the bottom card of a stack is fed to drive rollers outside a card hopper when a clutch is engaged to drive a picker roller through one revolution. In the second IBM TDB referred to above, a cammed pulley in conjunction with a belt is used for driving the bottom card from a stack. In the first patent referred to above, a friction belt is brought into contact with the bottom card through an opening in a baseplate for driving the bottom card between two rollers beyond the throat. The last patent referred to above discloses essentially the same material as the first mentioned IBM TDB. In order to insure that each card in the stack will be transported or fed out of a card hopper when desired, weights have been used. These weights have been placed on top of the card stack. This has not been an entirely satisfactory approach in that it is inconvenient from an operator standpoinL'Also, weight orientation is often a problem, and enclosing the apparatus in a housing is not feasible. Further in this respect, orientation of the apparatus as a whole is important since the apparatus is gravity dependent. With the apparatus of this invention, feed roller drive clutches are not necessary, less volume is required, and the integrity of the stack of. cards is maintained both at the entry throat and exit throat for insuring proper ejection or feeding. Further, the apparatus can be enclosed in a housing, and orientation is not important since gravity is not a factor of concern.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION With the card feeding apparatus of this invention, an operator can manually insert a stack of cards and be insured that a card is ejected when desired. The apparatus is generally made up of a rotatable pressure plate and a rotatable card lifter having angularly extending wings on one end thereof. The angularly extending wings of the pressure plate and card lifter form an entry throat which is expandable for receiving a stack of record cards. Within the entry throat are' l) a pressure roller rotatable about the same axis as the pressure plate, and 2) card lifter rollers normally in contact with the pressure roller and having their axial shafts journaled in the card lifter. When a stack of record cards is inserted into the entry throat, the pressure plate and pressure roller are displaced against a spring. Further insertion of the cards will be between the pressure plate and a baseplate which carries the card lifter. The terminus of the apparatus as far as insertion of the stack of cards is concerned is a knife blade and guide against which an end of the stack of cards is aligned. With the cards fully inserted and aligned, the spring causes forces to be applied to the cards both at the plane of the pressure and lifter rollers, andat the far extremity of the pressure and baseplates adjacent the knife blade. At the far extremity of the baseplate is an exit throat made up of a throat piece secured to the baseplate and spaced from the knife blade a distance equal to the thickness of one card. Located on essentially the same plane as the pressure and card lifter rollers is a continually rotating motor driven feed roller normally spaced out of contact with the cards. When it is desired to feed a card, the end of the card lifter opposite the integral wing is rotated, allowing the pressure roller to bring the stack of cards in contact with the feed roller. That is, an outer card is brought in contact with the feed roller. The card is then fed through the exit throat. Thereafter, the lifter is rotated back to its normal position and the remaining cards are brought out of contact with the feed roller.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 there is shown a perspective view of the apparatus of this invention.

FIG. 2 there is shown a sectional view of the apparatus taken along lines 2 2 in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 there is shown a cross section of the apparatus taken along lines 3-3 of FIG. 1, a stack of record cards, and a portion of the apparatus housing.

' FIG. 4 there is shown another view similar to FIG. 3 with the stack of cards fully inserted and with one of the cards being fed through the exit throat.

' DESCRIPTION. OF THE PREFERRED BMBODIMENT Referring first to FIG. 1 in conjunction with FIG. 3, there is shown the card feeding apparatus of this invention generally designated by reference numeral 10. Apparatus 10 is incorporated into a housing 20 having opening 21 through which a stack of record cards 22 is inserted during a loading operation. Apparatus 10 is made up of a baseplate 7, a pressure plate 8, a card lifter 25, lifter rollers 4, a feed roller 18, and a pressure roller 5. Baseplate 7 has fixedly secured thereto a throat piece 11. Also, baseplate 7 has integral tongues 15 for carrying lifter 25. Opening 26 in lifter 25 is for receiving a shaft (not shown) which extends from sides 17 and is journaled in tongues 15. Card lifter 25 is therefore rotatable about the shaft in opening 26, but is normally maintained in the position shown by solenoids or similar means represented by arrow 30. Card lifter 25 has an angularly extending wing l on one end and' is connected about its other end to solenoids 30. Also,card lifter 25 carries freely rotatable card lifter rollers 4. With the components of the apparatus in the position shown in FIG. 3, a motor driven feed roller 18 has its axis of rotation on essentially the same plane with the axis of rotation of rollers 4 and 5, and has its upper periphery spaced below the upper periphery of rollers 4 (FIG. 2). In operation, roller 18 is to be continually rotated.

Above baseplate 7 and lifter 25 is pressure plate 8. Pressure plate 8 has an angularly extending wing 24 and integral hubs 28. Pressure roller 5 is rotatable about a shaft 27 which has ends 16 extending through hubs 28 and the arms on one end of pivot member 19.

her (not shown) supporting the apparatus. The other ends of springs 6 are attached to a bar 12 mounted on hub 28 by screws 30. Also supported by a framemember (not shown) is a knife blade 9 positioned such that an opening 23 the'thickness of one card 31 (FIG. 4) is formed between the lower edge of blade 9 and throat piece 11. I

From the above, an expandable pressure throat is formed by wings I and 24 and rollers-4 and 5. During insertion of cards 22, pressure plate 8 is raised against spring 6, and rotates about'shaft 27. Member 19 will rotate about pins 13. Y

Refer next ot FIG. 4 wherein there is shown apparatus 10 with a stack of record cards 22 fully inserted therein. In thisinstance, pressure roller Sis acting against the uppermost card and urging stack 22 in. a downward direction under the influence of springs 6. The lowermost card is acting against rollers 4. As shown, a card 31 has'been partially ejected from apparatus It This was accomplished by lifter 25 being rotated in a downward direction by activation of solenoids 30. Lifter 25 was rotated downwardly to the extent that card3l was engaged by rollerl8. The downward movement of lifter 25 was followed by stack 22.

stack 22.- Another aspect is that roller 18 can be made relatively large in diameter and length due to the fact that it is to be'continually rotated. With the wider width, much more reliable gripping is attained with a minimum of slippage.

Yet another aspect is that pressure is maintained on the stack 22 at two important places; between the rollers and in the vicinity of the exit throat (adjacent both ends of the cards). With pressure maintained at'these two points, there will be little likelihood of malfunction in terms of non-feeding or buckling of a card.

As pointedout above, use of this apparatus is accom- 'plished by an operator 1 inserting a stack of cards through opening 21 in housing 20. Should the operator decide that any remaining cards are to be removed, she

can simply grasp the cards and pullthem out.

Orientation references herein to top and bottom cards, etc.', is merely for purposes of clarity-of description. The entire apparatus could. readily be inverted and function with the same reliability.

' In summary, with the card feeding apparatus of this invention, an operator can manually insert a stack of cards andbe insured that the bottom card is ejected when desired. In operation, an operator will insert the cards through an opening in the housing enclosing the apparatus. Beyond the opening in the housing is an expandable pressure throat made up of angularly extending wings integral with a rotatable card lifter and a ro- This resulted in card. 31 being partially driven through opening 23. To the right of opening 23 are pinch rollers orother means ('not shown) for pulling card.31 com,- pletely through opening 23. Drive roller 18 only drives card 31 a-sufficient extent to be pickedup by'the pinch rollers. Lifter 25 and cards 22 must be raised by deactivation of solenoids 30 before card 3l clears the exit throat 23. This is to prevent roller 18 from ejecting another card. I

Since handling of card 31 may require an undetermined amount of time, lifter 25 is only lowered selectively. Withroller l8 continually rotating there are no time delay problems normally associated with feeding cards. The pick time of solenoids 30 is very short compared to the time required to start a roller and drive a card.

Again referring to FIG. 2, in the normal position the plane of the upper surface of feed roller 18' is below the upper surfaces of lifter rollers 4. Under the influence of springs 6, pressure roller 5 is'urged toward lifter rollers 4. Since feed roller 18 is a continually'rotating roller, the ejection of a bottom card is accomplished by lowering lifter rollers 4 for effectively bringing feed roller 18 I intocontact with the card. i I g One important aspect of this invention is that the axis of rotation of rollers 4, 5,. and 18 essentially lie'on the same plane. This will eliminate any tendency of cards 22 to warp and thereby cause-a malfunction of the apparatus. This is not particularlyv important with a large tatable pressure plate. .With the stackof cards fully inserted and against a knife blade and guide, the stack is maintained intact by '1) a pressure roller connected to the pressure plate and forming part of the pressure throat, 2) card lifter rollers connected to the card lifter and forming another part of the pressure throat, and 3) the pressure'plate itself forcing the stack against a baseplatecarryingthe card lifter. In the normal position a feed roller is spaced from the pressure roller, and is located on the same plane with the pressure and lifter rollers. The pressure plate is spring biased against the stack such that the stack is maintained intact in the vicinity of an exit throat and the entry throat. The feed roller is a continually rotating roller which is brought into contact with an outer card on the stack each time the card lifter is rotated. When this occurs, the outer card is ejected through the exit throat made up of an stack of cards, but does become a possible problem as the number of cards diminishes. It is noted that the same plane will not be exactly maintained due to the arc traversed by roller 5 and pivot member 19. This variance is minimized by controlling the length of arm l9 relative to a contemplated maximum thickness of opening between the knife blade and a throatpiece connected to the baseplate. Thereafter, the lifter is rotated back to its normal positon and the cards are brought out of contact with the feed roller.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a particular embodiment,

it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus for accepting a number of cards and selectiveiy ejecting said cards, one at a time, said apparatus comprising:

a. a'rotatable lifter means for normally. acting against said number of cards adjacent one end of said number of cards] and forming a part of an expandable pressure entry throat means;

b. a base means for normally supporting said number of cards adjacent both an exit throat and another end of said numberof cards and having carrying means for carrying said rotatable lifter means adjacent said expandable pressure entry throat means;

c. a rotatable pressure means forming another part of said expandable pressure entry throat means;

d. means for maintaining 1) said pressure means in contact with said number of cards adjacent both ends of said number of cards, and 2) said number of cards in contact with said base means and said lifter means; and

e. means for causing said lifter means to bring said number of cards in and out of contact with a drive means adjacent said one end of said number of cards for ejecting one of said number of cards.

2. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said pressure throat means also comprises angularly extending wings integral with said pressure means and said lifter means.

3. An apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said pressure throat means also comprises a pressure roller carried by said pressure means and a lifter roller carried by said lifter means.

4. An apparatus according to claim 3 further comprising a rotatable pivot means about one end of which said pressure means is rotatable.

5. An apparatus according to claim 4 wherein said drive means is a rotatable drive roller, and the axes of rotation of said drive, lifter, and pressure rollers essentially lie in the same plane.

6. An apparatus according to claim 5 further comprising a throat piece connected to said base means.

7. An apparatus according to claim 6 further comprising a knife and guide means positioned relative to said throat piece and'forming an exit throat.

8. An apparatus according to claim 7 further comprising a housing enclosing said apparatus and having an opening communicating with said pressure throat means,

9. An apparatus according to claim 8 wherein said means for maintaining said pressure means in contact with said cards comprises a spring means.

10. An apparatus according to claim 9 wherein said means for causing said lifter means to bring said cards in and out of contact with said drive means comprises a solenoid means. 

1. An apparatus for accepting a number of cards and selectively ejecting said cards, one at a time, said apparatus comprising: a. a rotatable lifter means for normally acting against said number of cards adjacent one end of said number of cards and forming a part of an expandable pressure entry throat means; b. a base means for normally supporting said number of cards adjacent both an exit throat and another end of said number of cards and having carrying means for carrying said rotatable lifter means adjacent said expandable pressure entry throat means; c. a rotatable pressure means forming another part of said expandable pressure entry throat means; d. means for maintaining 1) said pressure means in contact with said number of cards adjacent both ends of said number of cards, and 2) said number of cards in contact with said base means and said lifter means; and e. means for causing said lifter means to bring said number of cards in and out of contact with a drive means adjacent said one end of said number of cards for ejecting one of said number of cards.
 2. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said pressure throat means also comprises angularly extending wings integral with said pressure means and said lifter means.
 3. An apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said pressure throat means also comprises a pressure roller carried by said pressure means and a lifter roller carried by said lifter means.
 4. An apparatus according to claim 3 further comprising a rotatable pivot means about one end of which said pressure means is rotatable.
 5. An apparatus according to claim 4 wherein said drive means is a rotatable drive roller, and the axes of rotation of said drive, lifter, and pressure rollers essentially lie in the same plane.
 6. An apparatus according to claim 5 further comprising a throat piece connected to said base means.
 7. An apparatus according to claim 6 further comprising a knife and guide means positioned relative to said throat piece and forming an exit throat.
 8. An apparatus according to claim 7 further comprising a housing enclosing said apparatus and having an opening communicating with said pressure throat means.
 9. An apparatus according to claim 8 wherein said means for maintaining said pressure means in contact with said cards comprises a spring means.
 10. An apparatus according to claim 9 wherein said means for causing said lifter means to bring said cards in and out of contact with said drive means comprises a solenoid means. 